This is the first article from The Hilltop Monitor addressing recent academic, athletic and personnel changes to William Jewell College. More stories may be published as the Cardinal community receives more information.

On Feb. 3, 2025, the president and Board of Trustees of William Jewell College announced changes to the academic and athletic profile of the College. Jewell’s declaration of financial exigency enabled an internal financial exigency management committee and the Board of Trustees to address the College’s financial situation by sharply reducing its faculty, staff and academic programs.

The College’s Board of Trustees approved the proposed changes on Jan. 22. Some of these changes include the following.

Creation of academic divisions

All majors and academic programs have been reorganized into five new Academic Divisions:

1. Business and Communication 
2. Behavioral and Natural Sciences
3. Analytical Science
4. Community Engagement and Applied Arts
5. Culture, Society and Justice

Regarding the new Academic Divisions, emails to students from faculty members have informed them that faculty members “remain dedicated to providing [them] exceptional opportunities” to help students achieve their goals, and that faculty will continue to “assist [students] in [their] academic and professional success.” 

Further details about what this academic shake-up means for students are unclear at this time. 

Phasing out of programs

Additionally, the College has chosen to phase out certain majors and other programs.

On the academic side, the College has chosen to phase out Nonprofit Leadership, Healthcare Leadership, Integrated Healthcare, Theatre, and Musical Theatre. This means that the College will not be allowing new students into these majors, and has ceased recruitment for Theatre programs.

The discontinuations will not take effect until next fall, so students graduating in May 2025 are unaffected by these changes. For students graduating after May 2025, the College has told students that “teach-out planning is underway to ensure currently enrolled students can complete their major as planned.” 

Higher Learning Commission (HLC) guidelines permit teach-out plans. However, provisional plans submitted to the HLC must provide a “fair and equitable” plan to students and “[provide] students with reasonable opportunities to complete their education without additional charges” (emphasis added). In other words, students currently enrolled at Jewell must be able to graduate with their current degree program at the same cost as before.

The reduction in majors and programs offered is being accompanied by other reductions across the College. The Honors Institute in Critical Thinking, the Cardinal Sound athletic band, and French language courses are all being discontinued. (Note that Jewell does not currently offer French as a major, only Applied French as a minor; the Honors Institute is not a major either). The effects of these removals are currently unclear.

Across all these changes, the College notes that “[s]tudents in impacted programs have been engaged by faculty and leadership to learn more and plan.”

College administrators also clarified that all athletic programs are continuing through the spring as planned. With that said, it is unknown which athletic programs will persist into the next academic year. The College is currently convening “an athletics task force” that “is working to complete the new vision for Cardinal Athletics before the end of the academic year.” Cardinal Athletics have not yet provided details of this change.

Faculty and staff layoffs

Despite savings from these removals, the financial exigency committee chose to lay off many faculty and staff. Hilltop calculations using Department of Education data suggest that 20-30% of the College faculty have been laid off. The College’s declaration of financial exigency in Dec. 2024 enabled it to remove any or all faculty, including faculty members with tenure, as part of the restructuring process. Without the declaration of financial exigency, tenured faculty could not otherwise be dismissed in this manner.

Ultimately, 45 faculty and staff lost employment with the College. These included 13 retirements and resignations, and the involuntary removal of 14 faculty and 18 staff members. College administrators claim that they are “grateful to faculty for engaging in meaningful ways in this process to ensure Jewell’s relevance,” and assure the Cardinal community that Jewell is still a “leading higher education institution.” 

Two Cabinet members will also leave the College. Vice President for Access and Engagement Dr. Rodney Smith will voluntarily be leaving the College and Jewell’s page emphasizing its commitment to diversity is currently down. The current vice president for academic affairs, Dr. Daniel Jasper, has accepted a position as provost of Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi.

As of the time of publication, it is still unclear what people and what positions have been terminated by the College. However, it seems that many beloved members of the Jewell Community are either no longer working at the College or will not be returning next fall; this includes employees who have worked at Jewell for years and, in some cases, even decades.

Impacts on the bottom line

As a non-profit receiving public funding, William Jewell College is required to publish IRS form 990, which guarantees some degree of financial transparency. Its most recent filing indicates that the College lost $12 million in the fiscal year ending June 2023. In the same year, an internal audit identified a “deficiency in internal financial or governance controls that could inhibit the College’s ability to ensure compliance with federal regulations” or to “track and report financial data reliably.”

That said, a Feb. 3 letter to the Cardinal community notes that after implementing these changes, “Jewell has identified 95 percent of the college-wide goal of $7 million in reductions ahead of 2025-26.”

The remaining $5 million will be recouped through “improved net tuition revenue, and additional expense management initiatives over the course of the next academic year.” While the College has announced that it will raise tuition 4.5% in 2025-26, the particulars of further savings have not been specified. These numbers suggest that after implementing this set of changes, the College will have ensured its financial stability.

Through the process, College administrators report that they “are committed to ensuring the Jewell community has the information it needs throughout this journey.” 

This story is developing.

​On Sept. 19, the Kansas City Police Department became the subject of a federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The investigation is the result of the alleged long-term mistreatment of women and minorities by the KCPD, specifically in regard to its hiring practices.

​The inquiry came about after the Kansas City Star published several articles describing widespread police harassment against Black citizens and even amongst their fellow officers, causing many Black cops to resign. According to the Star’s reporting, 18 Black officers resigned over a 15-year period, and despite making up 27% of Kansas City’s population, Black individuals currently only make up 12% of the police force.

While ​public trust in the police from white citizens has remained steady, confidence from Black citizens has fluctuated over the past few years, a 2021 Gallup poll reported. They remarked that Black citizen’s confidence in police reached an all-time low in 2020 following nation-wide protests to police violence, and remains slow to recover. 

In a nationwide evaluation of policing practices, KCPD ranked among the lowest of Missouri’s 526 departments. The evaluation, compiled by the nonprofit organization Police Scorecard, reported that KCPD obtained more funding per capita, but consistently used more non-lethal and lethal force per arrest and spent more funds on misconduct settlements than 77%, 73%, 96% and 67% of other Missouri police departments respectively. The evaluation also reported that there was a greater racial disparity in use of deadly force than 62% of other departments.

On Oct. 14, a second bombshell report emerged, published by the Kansas City Defender and accusing the KCPD of failing to take concerns seriously as Kansas City community leaders reported that Black women were being targeted and kidnapped on Prospect Avenue. Just a week prior to the report on Oct. 7, a Black woman escaped captivity in Excelsior Springs, claiming that the suspect who held her in his basement kidnapped her from Prospect Avenue and also murdered several other women. Attempts to bring attention to the alleged kidnappings began in September, but according to the Defender, the KCPD addressed the disappearances as “completely unfounded” with no need for an investigation.

According to the DOJ, their investigation will specifically determine if KCPD promoted employment or hiring “pattern or practice of discrimination based on race” in violation of  the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Civil rights leaders, including  Gwen Grant who is president and CEO of Urban League of Kansas City, remain hopeful that the investigation is “just the beginning of a deeper dive that will also expand this investigation into patterns and practices of excessive and deadly force.”

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas spoke positively of the DOJ’s investigation at a news conference about the issue: “Most of our conversations, not just in Kansas City, but in the state of Missouri, have not looked at how we can make sure that our officers — particularly officers of color and women — can be taken care of, [and] have not looked at how we can become a more diverse department reflective of our city. I think no matter what becomes of this investigation, it’s important for us to take steps and make sure we’re doing right by our officers.”

​The interim Police Chief Joseph Mabin said the department plans to fully cooperate with the investigation.